The Life of a Dragonfly
by Tiptory
Summary: A beaten and injured Pitch finds help from the most unlikely of creatures. In return, he reawakens it's master, the Spirit of Winds. Together they struggle to understand the delicate balance of life and nature, while the Night Queen, Nyx , makes her move.


**So I hope you guys are in for good ol' angsty and brooding Pitch. Also a moment of stupid Pitch towards the end. I hope you enjoy the read, and no, the OC is not a sue, and she won't even be in the story till chapter 3...maybe later.**

**Also, a 'shout out' to the lovely I.F.T.S. for beta'ing this tripe I am trying to pass off as literature.**

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Chapter 1: The Lost Forest: A New Friend

Ashen fingers shakily griped the sharp and jagged face of the cavern wall for support as he steadily rose from where he once laid. He felt weak and dizzied, barley able to hold himself erect. His breathing was coming out in staggered pants, and limbs that felt heavy made movement of any kind incredibly difficult and slow, but he had to keep moving.

It was only by chance that he was able to duck into a nearby shadow and use it to teleport him away from his pursuers. It was not far, but enough to throw them off and buy him some time to recoup and plan out his next move. After regaining his breath, he looked down to check his injuries.

His robe was torn and tattered, the long V-neck of it was torn open exposing his slim and toned ashen chest littered with cuts, bites and bruises; the worse of which was a long winding gash that stretched from his right shoulder to just under his ribs, fresh blood still pouring heavily from it. Upon raising his hand to wipe the sweat that had collected on his brow did he realize from the sharp sting that his forehead also had a rather large cut revealing that the wetness he felt there was not sweat but blood running down the side of his face.

A bitter and drawn out chuckle escaped his lips. How much of a mess he must have looked. Him, the Nightmare King was this pathetic, scurrying away like a fleeing child hiding from his own Nightmares; the very creatures that he once wielded against those do-gooder Guardians and their ever silent leader, The Man in the Moon.

The Guardians.

The Big Four, now the Big Five, must be laughing at him now. There he goes. Herded and chased away by his own Fearlings, a fitting end for the Boogeyman, stuffed back under the bed. He could see them, with the children laughing him off as just a bad dream. One in particular laughing more than the others:

Jack Frost

Oh how he loathed that annoying little icicle that was the thorn in his side. Frost was the one pawn in his chess game that he, for lack of a better word, 'failed' to take account of. Never did he suspect that Jack Frost, the lonely, cold, teen that spreads ice and pranks, would side with the Guardians; reject his offer, and join the merry little band of do-gooders.

He thought if he sympathized with the boy, share with him that he was not alone, that he, the Boogeyman understood what it felt like.

To not to be believed in.

To be hated for being what you are.

To be alone.

Why would he choose them over Him? They would never understand him; sure it would be nice in the beginning. To have people care for him, acknowledge his presence, but they would never truly understand him. They did not die to become who they were; they did not wake up to nothing but a cold a dark world, where all they were given was their name and nothing more. The Moon, a silent observer to their suffering; the hollow ache that would stir up in their chest every time a person would walk right through them. Each one, bit by bit chipping away a piece of their soul, the worst part is how unaware they are of it.

An all-consuming loneliness, and the crushing fear that no one will ever see them. That fear will push one to do anything to stave that fear.

Pitch shook himself from his ruminations. He needed to take advantage of his cunning and to start making his way out of the cave he was in. Taking a deep breath and ignoring the hot spikes of pain that rippled through his chest, he began to slowly make his way in what he assumed was out the cavern.

Using the wall support greatly put the strain off of him and improved his balance enough to actually make decent progress. It was also worth noting the strange texture of the walls. They were sharp, jagged bits of stone with patches of moss spread about providing an odd combination of hard and velvet softness.

After some time of walking blindly in one direction did Pitch begin to see light ahead of him, signaling the opening of the cave. After carefully waiting just out of sight of the exit, listening for anything indicating that a Nightmare was near did Pitch limp out of the cave.

The cavern had deposited him into a lush forest. Tall oaks and camphor trees stretched high above him, their thick branches and leaves blocking out the daylight that only just managed to filter through to the ground. It gave him the perfect cover for his journey.

Another wave of dizziness hit the Boogeyman, causing him to stumble and catch himself on a tree. His strength was draining fast; he would only have a few hours at most till his strength completely gave out. Given that he was in a frantic state when he teleported, Pitch had no idea where he had teleported. Normally he could traverse large distances, during his short resurgence to power he could travel to other continents in the blink of an eye through the use of shadows. However in his injured disbelieved state he could only manage a few kilometers, with a slight chance of finding a strong enough shadow to go further.

Wherever he was, he needed to find a place to take shelter and rest. The Boogeyman sighed as he pushed off the tree and continued on his way; taking in the lush scenery. Rich green grass with an assortment of daisies and tulips scattered about. The soft chatter of the birds that flew overhead; it seemed that all of nature was marching on merrily as he limped along, in the slow decent of death. It was something that the Nightmare King did not take much notice of. Sure he has walked in forests and wooded areas, but he never really paid attention to how much to the wonder of it all. The trees, flowers, birds, insects, all of them living a place and managing to keep it so beautiful without the aid of humans. It was really something to behold, and had he not been on the run, Pitch would have, perhaps out of slight curiosity, ventured off to explore this forest more. For now, he would have to settle on taking everything in as he moved along.

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The sun had begun to set as evidenced by the orange hue of the light filtering through the forest canopy. Pitch still had not found any means of shelter and from the looks of his surroundings, he was not finding any soon. Deciding it would be wise to rest for a few moments before continuing, Pitch made his way over to a large paulownia tree to conceal him as he sat.

The tree itself was large and was actually smaller off-shoots that twisted and knotted close together; giving the appearance of a singular tree. Covering its base was a soft velvety cushion of bright green moss, which to the delight of it's current occupant, made sitting much more comfortable had there just been just the exposed roots and earth.

Never had sitting felt so good. Pitch was not used to walking so much; sure he was up and about, but he never walked for so long without using his shadows to transport him. It was an enlightening experience, to say the least. He never realized how much he relied on his shadows in even the most mundane of actions such as moving about. Even when he was at his weakest, before his attack on The Big Four, he was still able to use his shadows and sand to do many useful things.

But now…now he couldn't even do any of those things, well at least not in his current injured condition. Hopefully. The Boogeyman look down at himself to see how his injuries were holding up. Despite how weak he felt, his body was beginning to take care of repairing its owner. The amount of blood leaking out of his wounds had significantly lessened, but was still a terrible sight; being infused with fearlings did have its advantages when it came to protecting their host.

It was probably because of the fearlings that Pitch was even able to even walk while in such a tattered state, but even with their help, Pitch did need to rest if he ever was going to close these wounds. He may be an ancient being, but even the Boogeyman was susceptible to infections and exsanguination it just took much longer for it to affect him than it would a normal human.

Even so, the state of his body, primarily his chest, perturbed him. Mustering what little energy he could, Pitch waved his hand out in front of him; calling out to the trace amounts of nightmare sand he could and mixing it with the bits of Sandman's sand that was still on him. The sand mixture was enough to fill his palm, mostly shimmering black with bits here and there of opulent gold sand.

Bracing himself, Pitch brought the sand to the large gash on his chest, with a quick intake of air; he ground the sand into the opening, hissing the moment the mixture made contact with the tender flesh. The sand began to take to the wound, covering the red opening with a sheet of glittering black. After the sand had settled and hardened, Pitch took what was left of the sand and used it for the other major cuts on his forearms and torso.

Looking down, his chest was now marred with glittering black patches of hardened sand, temporary bandages to at least keep his fluids in and protect from infection; no doubt they would scar. All that was left to tend to was the wound on his head. A loud rumbling from within the Boogeyman's stomach sounded, as if to remind him of its needs as well.

Bringing his hand to his forehead, he felt around for the opening. It was really small and not as bad as it bleed, the blood had even dried enough to seal the wound and stop blood loss. One problem solved. He sighed in relief, leaning his head back against the tree to look up at the forest canopy. He must have already hit the horizon since the forest had darkened considerably, which was going to make looking for food mildly difficult. His stomach protested again, urging him to begin to search his immediate area for sustenance.

It was in this darkness that Pitch was extremely grateful for having been used to living in the shadows, spending millennium in darkness made his night vision as keen as an owl's. Finding nothing in his current search area, Pitch was considering giving up and just sleeping it off till another low grumble from his stomach argued against sleeping its needs off. So the Boogeyman continued to look around for a berry bush or something to sate his hunger. After rounding another tree and pushing past some dense brushwood he spotted several bushes containing berries.

Pitch made his way over and on closer inspection there were two clusters of bushes, each carrying a different type of berry. One had large white berries with a dark black spot, making the berries almost look like eyes; the other had bright yellow berries with big red spots.

The Boogeyman was caught between which bush he should eat from. He had no idea, which was edible, and which were not, he could not tell if even either of them was edible. It was moments like this that made Pitch wish he had found the time to peruse the botany section of his massive library, but he didn't have time to plan his future reading, he had to just guess and hope for the best.

Based on his basic memory of bright colors being a warning sign in nature for poisonous things, Pitch decided to go for the white berries. Reaching into the bush he grabbed a handful and began to hungrily devour them.

However, as soon as the bitter juices from the berries hit his tongue he began to violently retch emptying what little of the berries he managed to ingest along with anything else that may have been his stomach. After a few solid minutes spent trying to calm the convulsions that shook his body, Pitch deduced that the white berries were perhaps not the best meal for him right now, and he was now even more hesitant to take his chances with the other bush.

With a sigh of exhaustion, he collapsed back into the grass to stare up at the trees in frustration. This was just really wretched. Him, The bloody Boogeyman, is starved, wounded, and stuck sleeping out in the woods like some penniless carpetbagger. Even the pitiful peasants during the Dark Ages that he loved to terrorize were not this pathetic.

Honestly, he had survived his battle with the Guardians, and his scuffle with his Nightmares, but low and behold it was almost a berry bush that ended the Nightmare King's life. Pitch continued to languish his situation until something moving out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Sitting up, he turned his notice to the other berry bush.

Resting on a small twig poking out of the bush was a bright vermilion dragonfly that glowed a soft golden red in the darkness around it. Pitch had never seen any insect like it before, and he certainly never saw anything other than a firefly glow, yet alone something that glowed such a peculiar color. He watched mesmerized by the insect as hit began to feed on the yellow berries that a moment ago he considered poisonous; but to his surprise the dragonfly was not harmed by the berries.

He snorted "Figures, of course the berries won't harm you." He sighed. "At least you can have a meal." As if understanding him, the dragonfly stopped eating and flew over to him, placing itself at eye level with him. Hesitantly, Pitch raised his hand to offer a perch for the fly, which it keenly accepted. The Boogeyman felt a small smile tug on his lips; he was talking to a bug. Madness must have been one of the side effects of the berries he consumed. He decided to play along and humor the insect; after all it should be honored to have the great Nightmare King to offer him audience.

"I don't suppose you know some berries I can eat, now would you?"

The dragonfly used his legs to raise itself up and down as if it were nodding, brushing its antennae against his thumb. The glowing insect flew up to Pitch's eyes to make sure it had his attention, once sure of that, it flew over to the bush it was eating from and landed back on the twig.

Pitch raised his brow incredulously. "Are you sure?" Why was he even bothering listening to food recommendations from an insect?

The dragonfly blinked its glow twice in response.

Shaking off the urge to debate whether dragonflies were trustworthy insects or not, the Boogeyman gave in, and plucked a single berry from the bush. Pitch eyed the garish fruit warily before plopping it into his mouth. Chewing it slowly, he was surprised when a tangy sweet juice coated his mouth. Savoring it a little more before swallowing. After waiting a few moments to see if his stomach resisted the offering and receiving no complaints, he began to snatch handfuls of berries, devouring them in seconds.

After several more handfuls of berries did the Boogeyman begin to feel sleepy; curling into himself he felt another wave of drowsiness hit him. Only after glancing over to the faint glow radiating off of the vermilion dragonfly resting next to him, giving him a small sense of safety, did he fall asleep.

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**I hope you enjoyed this chapter! R&R for faster updates!**


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